


System Shutdown

by OnceAndFloral



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, anways, but nothing explicit happens so I didn't tag it, eldritch bullshit, some existentialism, you can DEFO read this as romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24382321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnceAndFloral/pseuds/OnceAndFloral
Summary: Sometimes your buddy's body has some complications and you have to help them fix it.
Relationships: Drumbot Brian & Lyfrassir Edda
Comments: 8
Kudos: 197





	System Shutdown

Brian finds Lyfrassir standing perfectly still in the kitchen. They have a solemn look on their face, like they're concentrating really hard, but he can't figure out what they're looking at.

“Hello?” Lyfrassir calls. “Who's there? I heard you walk in.”

“It's Brian.” He approaches slowly, but stops when they frown. “What's going on?”

They sigh. “Okay, I'm only telling you this because I trust you not to fuck with me because of it. So my internal organs tend to… Periodically shut down.”

“Shut down.” Brian repeats.

“Yes. It seems like they're mostly there for aesthetic purposes now, because I went a whole week without breathing before my lungs decided to kick back in. I've also lost feeling in my limbs a few times. And right now I…” Lyfrassir huffs and shuffles their feet. “Well, I can't see. My eyes aren't working. And it happened rather suddenly so now I'm standing here without any idea how close I am to anything but I know there's knives on the counter _somewhere.”_

Brian glances at the aforementioned knives. He reaches over and picks them up, stashing them away in the nearest drawer. He'll deal with the organization later. “There's no more sharp objects, if that makes you feel better.”

“It does, thank you.” They feel around with one hand for a counter, but they're not close enough to reach any without walking. “Um. Can you just help me to my room real quick? I'll just stay in there until it all blows over.”

“... Sure.” He very gently takes their hand. The reason he's being so slow about it is because he doesn't want to startle them, is all. Brian isn't scared of how they'll react to how cold his hand is. That's preposterous.

Their fingers twitch against his when they meet, but then a considerable amount of tension melts from their body. Brian thinks they become an inch or so shorter from it.

“Anything else I need to know before we head off?” Brian asks.

“I don't think so. If you let me walk into anything, I'll be very angry.”

“Understood.”

They walk down the hallway together, too stiff to let their hands hang between them. Brian feels like he's walking them to a middle school dance or a stuffy cotillion. It's awkward, and Brian is so absorbed in it that he nearly runs into a few corners himself. Even so, he manages to get Lyfrassir to their room without any issues.

“Here we are,” Brian says.

“Thank you,” Lyfrassir replies. A beat. “Can you open the door?”

“Right!” Brian quickly grabs the handle and turns it, the door swinging inwards to reveal the room behind it. Lyfrassir's room is rather… Barren, he thinks. Nothing more than the standard bed, chair and desk, which doesn't have anything on it. It's a little bit sad, but Brian can't place his finger on the reason why.

“If you just help me to bed that'll be the end of things,” they speak up. “I'll go to sleep, or something, it's not like I can read books right now.”

“Sure.” They return to their uncomfortable hand holding stance for the final ten foot stretch. 

Lyf holds out a hand to find the edge of the bed, and then collapses in it face-first. They roll over and seemingly try to make eye contact with Brian, but miss his face by a distance.

“Thanks again,” they say. “It really means a lot.”

“It would have been wrong to just leave you standing there.”

“Yes, I suppose it would have. In any case, I'll see you in the morning. Or… well, I'll hopefully see you in the morning. These shutdowns last for inconsistent amounts of time, and I haven't yet found the pattern if there is one.”

“I doubt it,” Brian confesses. “Not much of your physiology seems to function on any set of rules.”

“... Yes. Good night, Brian.”

“Good night, Lyfrassir.”

* * *

“You have a heartbeat, right?”

Brian looks up from the star map he was studying to where Lyfrassir stands, arms hugged close to their chest. They seem uncomfortable, shifting their weight from side to side. “Yes. It's kind of the only regular body function I have left.”

“Can I listen to it, for a bit?”

“Um. Why?”

“My heart stopped working and I was hoping that if I could hear a heartbeat I'd remember how it worked,” they quietly admit.

Brian blinks. He turns this information over in his head. “Why me?”

“None of the others know about the whole ‘vital organs ceasing to function’ thing, and no offense, but weakness is not something I want to show this crew.”

He sighs, nodding. “I get that. How do you want to do this, then?”

Brian ends up laying on the floor of the bridge, Lyfrassir slotted against him as they rest their head on his chest. They haven't said anything since they laid down, just silently listened.

Out of curiosity, Brian takes one of their wrists in his hand and presses two fingers to their pulse point. Sensation has always been dulled for him, but even so he can't feel a thing. For a moment, that combined with how unblinking and limp Lyfrassir is gives them the appearance of a corpse.

Brian is suddenly very worried about them. “Lyfrassir?” He says, rubbing his thumb into their wrist as a little nudge. “Are you alive?”

“Yes,” they whisper. “I‒I think so, at least? I'm not sure.”

Them speaking is enough to assuage Brian’s larger fears. “Is listening… Helping at all?”

“I think. You have a very nice heartbeat, you know.”

He chuckles. “One of the weirder compliments I've received, but I'll take it.”

“It's warm, like a hearth,” they continue. “It has stardust at the edges.”

“Rather poetic of you.”

“I suppose.”

Brian realizes he’s still holding their wrist and lets go. He winces at the soft _thunk_ it makes when they let their arm just fall against his chest. If it hurt them at all, Lyfrassir doesn’t show any of it. Then again, they didn’t try to stop it either. He doesn’t like how despondent they are. It’s too familiar.

“So you’ve never had your heart stop working before, then?” Brian asks to break the silence.

“No, I have, this is… this is just the first time since I let anyone know about it.”

“Oh.” He feels somewhat flattered by that, he thinks. Maybe. It’s nice to be trusted enough for something like that, but it’s also a little sad that they were keeping that to themself for so long. “It just went away by itself all those other times?”

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”

They should talk about it. Brian should make them talk about it. He doesn’t though, he stays silent so that they can listen. He drifts off to sleep, and by the time he wakes up, Lyfrassir is gone. He hopes that their heart is beating again.

* * *

Brian flexes his fingers, wincing at the way the joints lock and stutter. He accidentally shut it in one of the doors earlier, and he hadn't really noticed how messed up it was until now. Ashes had been in the kitchen then, and that was an entire other debacle he had to deal with. What really sucks is that it's his dominant hand, so repairs would be a bitch.

So there he is, dropping a screwdriver for the fiftieth time as his hand spasms. Brian sighs and facepalms with his good hand. This was not going the way he wanted it.

“Real nice night in the workshop.”

Brian jumps when Lyfrassir abruptly appears before him. “Ah! How'd you get here? I locked the door!”

“Teleported,” Lyfrassir says. “Well, kind of. I'm still figuring out if I move through space, or if space is moving around _me_. It's a matter of classification. What are you doing?”

Brian is reeling from trying to keep up with Lyfrassir's train of thought. “Um, fixing my hand?”

They frown. “Your hand needs fixing?”

“Yes, I slammed a door on it. My body can be kind of finicky, fine with taking bullets one day, and then I sleep on my arm wrong and it's twisted.”

“I figured you just regenerated like the other Mechs.”

“I'm not as lucky as them, if you consider it luck, that is.” Brian says. “I can't _die_ , but if I fall into disrepair it can be kind of painful, or I can have difficulty moving. The others just have to go through routine check ups on their mechanisms every few centuries, but mine are a bit more frequent.”

“Routine check ups…” Lyfrassir wrinkles their nose. “Like Jonny has to go through open heart surgery?”

“Yup. He's a real baby about it too.”

They go silent, then point at his broken hand. “Do you need help?”

“I… What?”

“You're left handed, right? It looks like that's pretty hard. You helped me when my heart and eyes didn't work, I can help with your hand.”

“Sure, then.” He gestures to the tools spread out on the table. “Feel free.”

They sit down, pick up the screwdriver, then hesitate. “I've only ever worked with transport machinery, and I imagine you work different from that.”

“I can guide you through it,” Brian promises. “You can't mess up bad enough to kill me anyways.”

Lyfrassir nods, then sets to work on removing panels to get to his wiring and internal bits. He watches them move through the wires with utmost care, as though they were actual veins and not metal and plastic. He gets them through the placement of a few components, but then it's onto the disconnected wires. Lyfrassir glances back to him as a check in, and Brian just gives them the most reassuring smile he can.

He grits his teeth as the burn runs up his arm. It doesn't particularly hurt all that much, it's just a nasty pins and needles sensation. Still, Brian grabs their shoulder to steady himself a little. It doesn't last long as things snap back into place, and then it suddenly stops with just a slight buzz left in its wake.

“How's that?” Lyfrassir asks softly.

“It's great, thank you.”

They brush their fingers over his wiring, and his arm burns again but it's different this time. Less pins and needles, more heat. A bit more pleasant, as well. Then Lyfrassir picks up the screwdriver again and starts replacing paneling.

“And… there.” Lyfrassir pats his arm. “That should do it, huh?”

Brian tests his fingers again. The locking has stopped, and the painful twinges he only now noticed had been there were gone. He smiles at Lyfrassir. “Yea, it does.”

“Do you. Need anything else?”

“No, I think it’s okay.”

“I should be going then. It was nice to talk to you.”

“You as well.”

Lyfrassir disappears much the same way they had materialized before. It made sense, the door was still locked. Brian absentmindedly fiddles with his fingers. It had been awhile since someone helped him with repairs. 

He’d forgotten how nice that was.


End file.
